The newbie’s guide to Beet

“Tell the story of who you really are.” This is the driving force behind Beet, a new “social video” app that aims to differentiate itself from similar platforms, through one goal: to immortalize small snippets of your day into a digital photo album you can go through to relive and share memories, one video at a time.

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Beet is the brainchild of developers Sean Thielen and Jonathan Miller, who conceptualized and created the app as university students. In an interview with VideoInk, Thielen said that the idea behind Beet is to “offer a more genuine and authentic view of someone’s life… we made [Beet] to minimize the distance between our real selves and our social personalities.”

With its six-second time limit for videos, Beet offers a refreshing respite from the age of curated social media posts—a niche audience that both Vine and Snapchat, loosely considered predecessors of Beet, have tapped into. What Thielen and Miller say distinguishes Beet is its earnest motivation to only capture reality. Is this really the case with this app? Let’s find out.

The basics

The first thing you’ll notice about Beet is that its interface, from its streamlined blue logo to its all-white screen, is very cleverly designed to distinguish it from the bright, oversaturated layout of Snapchat. Visually, it’s a marriage of Instagram and Vine, with its minimalist circles and sparse use of color. For now, the app is available only on iOS. No word yet on whether the developers are planning to expand its reach to Android.

A plain white screen with the text “SOCIAL MEDIA IS MAKING US LONELY” greets you when you first open the app. It’s followed by a few more text screens, before getting to a quick tutorial on how to use the app—a welcome addition that many other apps lack, or tend to overdo. Beet’s tutorial is simple, straightforward, and doesn’t involve any messy videos or garish graphics.

It’s then followed by a sign-up screen, which is fairly straightforward. All you have to input are your e-mail address, a username, and a password. You’ll then be redirected to a screen where you can choose to log in with your Facebook account or follow recommended Beet users to get you started.

The experience

Before trying out the app and taking your first video, looking around and familiarizing yourself with all its features is recommended. Much like other social media apps, Beet has user-friendly buttons that probably don’t need any explanation to avid users of Twitter and Instagram.

Tapping the search button will take you to a unique “Today on Beet” page, where you can tap the header image to watch a compilation of some of the day’s most-watched videos. According to Thielen and Miller, a lot of Beet users are new parents recording their children’s activities, which is evident by the high percentage of parents making up the “Today on Beet” montage. Below this header image are circles with trending users, which you can click to view their profile and watch their stories.

Now it’s time to take your first Beet “moment.” Unlike Snapchat, where you can only take one story a day, Beet allows you to take as many moments as you can. To record, tap the white dot and hold down anywhere on the screen. As mentioned, Beet gives you a six-second time limit for your moments.

Each of your moments is then added to your “life story,” a collection of moments found on your profile that you can relive anytime. Beet also allows you to cross-post your moments to sub-stories on your page or to your other accounts across the web.

Like other social media pages, Beet encourages user interaction through “hearts,” which represent “likes” in this context. The more hearts your moment gets, the more karma you’ll have, which shows up on your profile and makes your moment more likely to show up as a trending story.

The verdict

Beet’s best feature is its most obvious: the ability to “save” your memories into a digital life story is an impactful message, one that really sets it apart from other social video platforms. Its six-second time limit, while it may feel like a hindrance at first, is actually a charming component, as it sets a tone of urgency. Being able to upload unlimited stories is also a plus, as is the app’s interface and clean visuals.

The biggest challenge for Beet will be to compete with more popular social video apps offering the same service. If its team can really devise a campaign to set it apart, it’s sure to blow up.